Mr. Speaker, my friends have lost their sense of humour. The official opposition supports clarity on the question of the majority required on Quebec's separation. We have said this for five years and are glad that the Prime Minister has finally seen the light. However the Prime Minister gives clarity a bad name. He is not clear on what constitutes a majority. He is not even clear on what constitutes a clear question.

Our question would be: Should Quebec separate from Canada and become an independent country with no special legal ties with Canada? Yes or no. Does the Prime Minister agree with that formulation of the question?

I can understand the Leader of the Opposition feeling like that when he has done such a flip-flop over three days. That is part of the circus he is developing himself.

The question will not be asked by this parliament. The question has to be asked by the legislative assembly in Quebec, but if they want negotiation after the vote the question has to respect all the conditions of the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister did not answer the question and he is equally unclear on his view of democracy. He says he wants a clear majority but he is unable to tell Canadians precisely what that is.

The federal government accepted 50% plus one in two previous Quebec referenda and 50% plus one was the rule in the Charlottetown referendum. Why will the Prime Minister not clarify his definition of what constitutes a clear majority?

Mr. Speaker, if the Leader of the Opposition had been listening before the last referendum, I said at least a dozen times in the House that 50% plus one was not a sufficient majority to break up the nation. I know that the leader of the Reform Party said that was enough. For me, it is not enough.

I would just like to say today, as I said on Sunday, that I hope I will not have to proceed. I made a very serious offer to Mr. Bouchard, and if he tells the nation that there will be no referendum I will not proceed at all.

Mr. Speaker, as the Prime Minister has said, he does not like 50% plus one but you will notice he did not say what he does like. That is not clarifying the situation. That is muddying it up.

We are democrats and we believe that Canadians are democrats too. We believe that a democratic majority on a clear question would have to be acknowledged and accepted in good faith by the federal government as grounds for negotiation however undesirable that outcome might be.

The Prime Minister says he wants to bring clarity to this situation. In the interest of clarity would the Prime Minister tell the House in what possible way he could enforce any other outcome?

Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court of Canada was very clear when it used the word clarity 25 times in its judgment. In the summary of its judgment it used it another 10 times, all the time referring to the nature of the question and to the majority.

I said that all the judgments would be respected. We will take the means to make sure that they will be respected. Otherwise there will be no negotiation.

I do not want to proceed with that. As I said very seriously on Sunday, the people do not want to hear about it. They want us to deal with other problems, and I am delighted Mr. Bouchard is taking the time to reflect on the very serious offer I made to him on Sunday morning.

Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister did not think it should be discussed right now, why in the world did he bring it up? That would be a question he should think about.

The finance minister is responsible for the federal government's fiscal policy. He knows that a yes vote in Quebec would send the economy into a period of serious uncertainty, but the rejection of the will of a democratic majority on a clear question would create even more chaos.

Has the finance minister developed a contingency plan to support the Prime Minister's rejection of the will of a democratic majority of Quebecers?

Mr. Speaker, I hope that the hon. member will read the judgment of the supreme court. The supreme court said that a simple majority was not enough, that the will of the people had to be very clearly expressed, that there had to be a large consensus to bring about such a very important statement.

As I said in my speech on Sunday, the leader of the Conservative Party felt that 66% was not enough for him to hold on to his leadership. Mr. Bouchard felt that 76% was needed for him to reflect before deciding to stay. In 1980 when the no side had 60% of the votes, it was not enough for the Parti Quebecois to respect democracy.

Mr. Speaker, it is not undemocratic at all. Most of the big countries in the world do not even permit a vote on separation. Let us look at other markets. In the United States they do not have permission to separate a state from the United States. In France the constitution is very clear that no part of France can quit France. We are more democratic in Canada than most of the countries of the world.

It is why I say that the Minister of Finance does not have to work on the plan. The Minister of Finance, like this Prime Minister and this party will do everything to make sure that we succeed in keeping all of the provinces in a united Canada.

Mr. Speaker, on the weekend, the Prime Minister told the Liberal rank and file that he was tired of talking about the constitution and that, if we were to quit talking about it, the problem would go away.

Are we to understand that the Prime Minister is now resorting to magical thinking and that all we have to do is stop talking about the constitution for a solution to be found?

Mr. Speaker, what I said was that people were tired of hearing about the referendum and winning conditions. People know that, every week, the Parti Quebecois talks about laying the groundwork for winning conditions. Every month, Mr. Bouchard says he is going to hold a referendum, when 72% of Quebecers do not want one.

If they want to talk about democracy, let them respect the will of 72% of Quebecers, who do not want a referendum. Then everyone will be happy and we can deal with real problems.

Mr. Speaker, people also know that the Prime Minister is the one responsible for the unilateral patriation of the constitution, the failure of the Meech Lake agreement, a social union agreement that does not have Quebec's signature, and unprecedented interference in Quebec's jurisdiction. The Prime Minister's name is associated with all these attacks on Quebec.

After 35 years in political life, is the Prime Minister not afraid of going down in history as the man who painted us into a corner?

Mr. Speaker, over the weekend, the Prime Minister added to his government's anti-democratic intentions by reaffirming before the party faithful that he had to intervene to set the rules for the next referendum in Quebec.

Can the Prime Minister tell us how he intends to question the most sacred rule in democracy, the rule of 50% plus one, the only rule that ensures the equality of all votes?

Stéphane DionLiberalPresident of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs

Mr. Speaker, I will never call my hon. colleague a poor democrat.

I believe simply that they have not given sufficient thought to the problems of reconciling their project and democracy. We would need to have a high level debate among democrats without pointless insults.

Second, if the rule of 50% plus one is sacred in all circumstances, why does the Government of Quebec not honour it in the case of its municipal referendums?

Democracy is expressed in different ways. There is a rule in democracy, which I did not invent, that the more serious and irreversible a decision, the higher the approval threshold must be.

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the minister and the Prime Minister that, in 1980 and 1995, the federal government accepted the rule of 50% plus one, since it was clear then that no one intended to question this universally recognized rule.

In trying to change the rule today, does the Prime Minister realize that he will go down in history as the man who wanted to derail democracy in Canada and Quebec?

Mr. Speaker, I have said dozens of times in this House that we would never agree to the rule of 50% plus one. I said so before the referendum, during the referendum and after the referendum.

If it takes two thirds of the National Assembly to appoint the auditor general, the director general of elections and the ombudsman, and if it takes a two thirds majority to expel a union from the CSN, there is no question of breaking up a country after a judicial recount because there is one vote in favour of breaking up the country, because that person may have left their glasses at home.